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Trident
A polyphonic analog synth produced by Korg from about 1980 to 1984. The Trident was Korg's bid to compete in the high end of the analog polysynth market, against competitors such as the Roland Jupiter-8 and the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5. Typical of several of Korg's models of this era, the Trident combined a conventional analog synthesizer voice architecture with string synth-like circuitry decided to producing imitations of string and brass sounds. The Trident was one of the first Korg synths to have patch memory; it provided three ROM presets (labeled "Piano 1", "Piano 2", and "Clav") plus 16 user-writable patch memory locations. The Trident was divided into string, brass and "synthe" sections, each with its own patch editing controls. All three sections were 8-voice polyphonic. The "synthe" section voice consisted of two VCOs, one VCF, one VCA, and one ADSR-type envelope generator. One of the VCOs produced sawtooth, square, and variable-width pulse waveforms, with a dedicated LFO for pulse width modulation. The second VCO produced only a sawtooth wave. The two VCOs were mixed and fed into the low pass VCF, which was implemented with an SSM 2044 integrated circuit. The envelope generator was hard-wired to the VCA and could also be routed to the VCF. The string section had an unusual amount of flexibility. Each string voice was equipped with an AR-type envelope generator and a special circuit that simulated the bite of a bow on the strings. A dedicated delay-able LFO provided vibrato, and an ensemble effect was available to thicken the sound. The section also had dedicated non-voltage-control high pass and low pass filters. Each brass section voice had an ADSR-type envelope generator and a low pass filter. The brass section had an unusual feature called "silence" that prevented the section from sounding unless a minimum number of keys were pressed; a knob allowed 2, 4, 6, or 8 keys to be selected. The Trident has one onboard effect: a flanger, which is unusual in that it can be driven to self-oscillation. Each section can be routed to the flanger or not. A set of keyboard split controls allows each section to play over the whole five-octave keyboard, or only the upper or lower half. Typical of Korg synths of the era, the Trident has a joystick that controls both pitch bend and modulation; depending on how the joystick is moved, modulation can be applied to all sections or only to the string section. The rear panel provides individual outputs for each section, as well as a combined output; there is a headphone jack on the front panel with an independent master volume control. Korg produced a Mark II version of the Trident, which first appeared in 1982. The Mark II added a second envelope generator to the synth section, dedicated to the VCF. It also added an additional 16 user-writable patch memory locations (for a total of 32 plus the three presets), and a cassette interface for saving patch data. The voice architecture of the Polysix derives more or less directly from the synth section of the Trident. Category:Korg synths Category:Analog synths Category:Polyphonic synths